Elena CanidoUniversity of A Coruña | UDC · Faculty of Philology
Elena Canido
PhD. MA in Advanced English Studies: Arts, Literature & Culture. BaHons Music Studies and Professional Music Performance. BaHons English Philology.
About
64
Publications
12,697
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Introduction
Deeply interested in culture, languages, and different creative fields since very early in my life. A singer, performer, and musician myself, I'm also inspired by other arts, like literature, film, and photography. I obtained my PhD cum laude with the interdisciplinary doctoral thesis 'Ireland into the Mystic: The Poetic Spirit and Cultural Content of Irish Rock Music, 1970-2020', while my research to date has addressed issues of identity, creativity, cultural studies, gender, and the arts.
Additional affiliations
September 2019 - March 2020
Position
- Doctoral researcher
Description
- PhD researcher at the LJMU School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Education
October 2017 - December 2020
Field of study
- Arts and Humanities (Advanced English Studies; Cultural Studies; Music; Comparative Literature, etc.)
October 2016 - August 2017
October 2012 - August 2014
Publications
Publications (64)
Edward Scissorhands, the fourth film by American artist and director Tim Burton, is a modern gothic fable about an unfinished, misunderstood creation that is rejected by society because of its differences. The story, therefore, has several meanings, since key issues such as "misperception" and "otherness" are dealt with throughout. It also communic...
Tim Burton's film 'Edward Scissorhands' has several meanings, since key issues such as "misperception" and "otherness" are dealt with throughout. It also communicates the perspective that forcing others to conform to societal norms is negative, especially when the focus is on someone who is marginalised by no fault of their own. This presentation w...
Only half a century ago, comics were not supposed to be a vehicle for the transmission of cultural phenomena and theories. Indeed, they were considered simply a subcultural product. Because of the all independency of its authors, however, many of the so-called underground comics of the 1980s and 1990s started to reflect on social and political issu...
This article provides an analysis of the portrayal of the woman artist in Willa Cather’s novel 'The Song of The Lark' while exploring the importance of creativity and art-making processes in the development of a woman’s positive self-identity, as is the case with Thea Kronborg, the protagonist of this modernist Künstlerroman, and with the author he...
As British ethnomusicologist Martin Stokes writes: “Music is clearly very much a part of modern life and our understanding of it, articulating our knowledge of other peoples, places, times and things, and ourselves in relation to them”. In this context, Hozier has been considered one of Ireland’s new leading political voices in popular culture sinc...
In the 1960s and the 1970s, Ireland had a tradition of strong female singers on the folk and blues scene particularly, but for the most part they were only interpreters, singing songs written by others or those that were part of the canon. Moreover, given the role that music critics would play in elevating the status of a given artist, in sustainin...
James Joyce's first novel 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' narrates twenty years in the life of Stephen Dedalus, a boy growing up in the nineteenth century Dublin, as he gradually decides to cast off all his social, familial, and religious constraints to maintain independence and live a life devoted to the art of writing. Thus, it is ultim...
This paper provides an analysis of the portrayal of the woman artist in Cristina García's 'Dreaming in Cuban' to examine the importance of creativity and art-making processes in the development of a woman's positive self-identity when in migration or exile, as it is the case with the character of Pilar Puente, who explores throughout the story her...
This presentation explores the portrayal of the woman artist in Cristina García's 'Dreaming in Cuban' to examine the importance of creativity and art-making processes in the development of a woman's positive self-identity when in migration or exile, as it is the case with the character of Pilar Puente, who explores throughout the story her relation...
Songs are a medium where music and words have their place and simply go together, but there is a certain connection which creates a unique blend, for a song is always incomplete without words—otherwise, we would be talking of just music or a musical text. Thus, a songwriter obviously chooses their words carefully to convey the right meaning, and in...
In this presentation, I will consider some of the issues pertaining to the study of songwriting while looking at Hozier, one of the latest, most renowned Irish lyricists. In all his lyrics, from the incredibly popular debut single "Take Me to Church" to the darkest songs on his last album to date, Wasteland Baby!, images, metaphors and symbols form...
The aim of this presentation is to examine the unique contribution of both Sinéad O'Connor and Dolores O'Riordan (The Cranberries) to Irish rock and popular music, in an attempt to understand them in new ways through a feminist critique of the role of Irish women as artists, social commentators and leaders. Throughout, I will analyse their differen...
U2 have always managed to hold a narrow line between social awareness and partisan political allegiance, belonging to a broad category of music that Rachel E. Seiler calls “contemporary conscious popular music”, which includes “music of any genre that focuses on social issues and perceived problems in society and may or may not include music that c...
Music and literature have always played a central role in the social and cultural life of Ireland, not only as a source of entertainment, but also as an effective way of recording Ireland's own history and culture and communicating these widely throughout the world, defining the identity of a nation and its people in a unique way. The main aim of t...
In the 1960s and the 1970s, Ireland had a tradition of strong female singers on the folk and blues scene, particularly, but for the most part they were only interpreters, singing songs written by others or those that were part of the canon. Furthermore, given the role that music critics would play in elevating the artistic status of rock and/or pop...
The way Ireland was seen internationally changed with the success of U2 in the 1980s, since they really put Ireland "in the window of the world." Consequently, in a period known as "the Celtic boom," Irish music gained more audibility and visibility in both Ireland and the world. But there was still one missing piece to this Irish rock scene: femal...
The aim of this presentation is to examine Sinéad O'Connor's and Dolores O'Riordan's unique contribution to Irish Rock and to popular music in general, in an attempt to understand them in new ways through a feminist critique of the role of Irish women as artists, social commentators and leaders. In order to do this, I will analyse their song writin...
Music has always played a central role in the social and cultural life of Ireland, not only as a source of entertainment but also as an effective way of recording Ireland's own history and culture and communicating these widely throughout the world. At the same time, popular music genres have always been closely linked to the field of literature in...
Motherhood and the relationship with a mother or a maternal figure plays a crucial role in a woman's identity formation. However, old traditions, morals, and cultural stereotypes might be as well transmitted from mothers to their daughters. This presentation explores the sometimes complex discourse of the mother-daughter relationship analyzing Jama...
Motherhood and the relationship with a mother or a maternal figure plays a crucial role in a woman's identity formation. However, old traditions, morals, and cultural stereotypes might be as well transmitted from mothers to their daughters. This paper explores the sometimes complex discourse of the mother-daughter relationship analyzing Jamaica Kin...
“He hurt me, but it felt like true love” sings American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey in “Ultraviolence” (2014), a song about the tortured, emotional violence of troublesome relationships—and apparently some physical violence, too. While many of the song's lines are ambiguous in their meaning, the relationship described is indeed tinted with viole...
This presentation analyses Lana Del Rey's lyrics to the song "Ultraviolence" from a gender perspective. The lyrical analysis is done from the premise that Western society is a patriarchy and, in addition, that gender is traditionally understood as a binary oppositional system. These issues relating to power and gender have been discussed in the pas...
Music has always played a central role in the social and cultural life of Ireland, not only as a source of entertainment, but also as an effective way of recording Ireland's own history and culture and communicating these widely throughout the world, which has helped defined the identity of the nation and its people in a unique way. The main aim of...
Motherhood and the relationship with a mother or a maternal figure play a crucial role in a woman's identity formation. Moreover, old traditions, morals, and cultural stereotypes might be as well transmitted from mothers to their daughters. This paper explores the sometimes complex mother-daughter relationship analyzing Jamaica Kincaid's story "Gir...
This paper explores how women authors in transcultural narratives address diferent issues associated with the transformation of oneself and the complexity of cultural assimilation, while putting forth a kind of identity that is characterized by independence, autonomy and rebellion represented by the female characters they relate to. Furthermore, th...
This presentation provides a comparative analysis of the portrayal of the woman artist in Willa Cather’s 'The Song of The Lark', Cristina García’s 'Dreaming in Cuban' and Sandra Cisneros’ 'The House on Mango Street' to examine the importance of creativity and art-making processes in the development of a woman’s positive self-identity —whether they...
It seems clear that a struggle that women have faced in the music industry is fighting the different stereotypes that they are put in. As Amy Rapahel claims, "if rock clichés traditionally number sex and drugs, there is a third equally important image: the groupie" (xxxi). These stereotypes are more than just generic labels, since they also restric...
This paper examines Irish rock music’s relationship to the wider world of popular music through a detailed analysis of songs, albums and live performances of some of Ireland’s most internationally influential artists and bands —such as Thin Lizzy, Van Morrison, U2, Gary Moore, Sinead O’Connor, and The Cranberries. The analysis will flow from a cele...
This presentation examines Irish rock music’s relationship to the wider world of popular music through a detailed analysis of songs, albums and live performances of some of Ireland’s most internationally influential artists and bands —such as Thin Lizzy, U2, Gary Moore, Sinead O’Connor, and The Cranberries. The analysis will thus flow from a celebr...
This Master's thesis provides a comparative analysis of the portrayal of the woman artist in Willa Cather's The Song of The Lark, Cristina García's Dreaming in Cuban and Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street to examine the importance of creativity and art-making processes in the development of a woman's positive self-identity —whether they are...
In the novel 'House Made of Dawn', N. Scott Momaday deals with the issue of the cultural identity conflict of young Indians in modern American society by giving an account of the progressive crisis in the life of the protagonist, Abel, who can be best described as "the lone, culturally divided outsider thinking his identity as a Native American in...
Originally written in 1847, Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece Jane Eyre was one of the most successful novels of the Victorian era, even though through its pages Brontë depicted an incisive critique of Victorian assumptions about gender as well as social class. In fact, since the novel's publication, Jane Eyre's story has been read in many different c...
Being creative —that is, self-expression through art— is crucial to any person's well-being, because it helps them express emotions and thoughts. Furthermore, songs, for instance, can serve sometimes to unify groups of people, and to move them to action, or just help them express common emotions. That was the case of the blues songs, which provided...
Throughout the ages, the key themes of our humanity, from creation and love to rejection and discrimination, are all discussed and portrayed most importantly through literature. A genre that specialises in these themes in particular is the gothic genre, which explores what lies both beneath and at the edge of rational human experience and existence...
According to Ian Inglis, "the adaptation of pre-existing albums into full-length screenplays has been a recurrent, if occasional, practice in film production, (and) the impetus came with the development of the concept album" (314). A sort of byproduct of progressive rock, concept albums (some also accordingly termed "rock operas") first emerged in...
This paper explores the development of Stephen's artistic identity in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by focusing upon the social and psychological aspects of the novel. Throughout, I will also analyse some of the passages that demonstrate Stephen's —and therefore Joyce's— creativity and resourcefulness to cope with identity issues in this...
This presentation explores the development of Stephen’s artistic identity in ’A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ by focusing upon the social and psychological aspects of the novel. Throughout, I will also analyse some of the passages that demonstrate Stephen’s —and therefore Joyce’s— creativity and resourcefulness to cope with identity issues...
In 'House Made of Dawn', Scott Momaday deals with the issue of cultural identity conflict of young Indians in modern American society by giving an account of the progressive crisis in the protagonist's life, Abel, who can be best described as "the lone, culturally divided outsider thinking his identity as a Native American in an Anglo society. He i...
James Joyce's first novel 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' narrates twenty years in the life of Stephen Dedalus, a boy growing up in the nineteenth century Dublin, as he gradually decides to cast off all his social, familial, and religious constraints to maintain independence and live a life devoted to the art of writing. Thus, it is ultim...
'V for Vendetta' is a film explicitly involving protest and revolution. However, the graphic novel was a work of major cultural importance for over a decade before the 2005 film adaption helped spread the messages and themes of the film worldwide. This presentation shows that taking the graphic novel’s original storyline and making it reflect Ameri...
It is no mistake that when people think of the 1950s, a very specific image comes to mind: a slim white woman wears her kitten heels as she holds a baby on her hip with one hand and pushes a vacuum with the other. That same slim white woman flashes a smile while placing a cooked meal in front of her husband and children, family programming playing...
My presentation explores the creation of identity in transcultural literature by analysing the main female character's development in three different stories, because these texts deal with the social and cultural conflicts that the young protagonists have to confront during the process of their forced migrations to an alien culture and their differ...
The theory and criticism of the literature of migration, exile and diaspora tend to focus only on the author's ethnicity or national origin. However, the protagonists' experiences, the loneliness, the identity crises, their growth and feelings of frustration at feeling misunderstood are themes that are relatable to immigrant and non-immigrant reade...
My presentation explores Bapsi Sidhwa's 'An American Brat' and Marjane Satrapi's 'Persepolis' because both texts deal with the social and cultural conflicts that the young protagonists have to confront during the process of their forced migrations to an alien culture and their different metamorphoses. I will begin by analyzing Bapsi Sidhwa's novel...
It was American philosopher and poet Henry David Thoreau who said that "Not till we are lost, [...] do we begin to understand ourselves" (148). However, when in migration, from the dislocations, commuting between cultures, the back and forth, the movement from here and there and de allí para aquí, often emerge tensions, contradictions, and reconfig...
According to Linda Hutcheon, one of the main features that distinguishes Postmodernism from Modernism is the fact the it "takes the form of self-conscious, self-contradictory, self-undermining statement" (Politics 1). One way of creating this double or contradictory stance on any statement is the use of parody: citing a convention only to make fun...
Technology has become embedded in our everyday life, thus, researchers and educators constantly strive to find new ways of incorporating technology in education, with language learning being one of those fields. Since technology has been used for years to both support and enhance second and foreign language learning, it is rare to find today a lang...
This presentation explores some of the different definitions and theories of "ekphrasis" in an attempt to come to terms with the somewhat complicated interrelationships between writing and other forms of arts—especially painting—to recognise the ekphrastic "dialogue" between words and images. I will particularly analyse the use of ekphrasis in Osca...
This paper explores some of the different definitions and theories of "ekphrasis" in an attempt to come to terms with the somewhat complicated interrelationships between writing and other forms of arts—painting in particular—to recognise the ekphrastic "dialogue" between words and images. More especially, it will analyse the use of ekphrasis in Osc...
It was American philosopher and poet Henry David Thoreau who said that “Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” And this is exactly what this presentation is about, because 'La Perdida' is indeed a story about finding yourself by getting lost. Cartoonist and writer Jessica Abel is the author of this graphic novel whose protagoni...
Rock has long been seen as predominantly a man’s genre, consequently catering mainly to its male audience. Since the big explosion of rock in the sixties, women have been fighting to find their place in the rock culture. Through the decades however, different female rockers have had an influence that has helped pave the way for other successful wom...
This paper explores the topic of the reformulation of identity in women's literature of exile. Traditionally, analyses of this literature are based on the parameters of ethnicity and national origin; however, I argue that an analytical focus on loss and reformulation of identity rather than ethnicity or national origin reveals discursive strategies...
This presentation explores the topic of the reformulation of identity in women's literature of exile. Traditionally, analyses of this literature are based on the parameters of ethnicity and national origin; however, I argue that an analytical focus on loss and reformulation of identity rather than ethnicity or national origin reveals discursive str...
Written in 1957, 'On the Road' became an inspiration for future generations and for people who were dissatisfied with the pressures in American culture to conform to a conventional lifestyle. Jack Kerouac, the author, is considered the father of the Beat Generation, a very important movement of the times. This presentation will give an overview on...
Written in 1957, 'On the Road' became an inspiration for future generations and for people who were dissatisfied with the pressures in American culture to conform to a conventional lifestyle. Jack Kerouac, the author, is considered the father of "the Beat Generation," a very important movement of the times. This paper gives an overview on the life...
Desde que el ser humano comenzase a hacer uso del lenguaje, se ha intentado conocer el origen de las lenguas y los motivos por los que surgen conflictos lingüísticos. El que se intente dar una explicación metafórica a la existencia de múltiples lenguas diferentes en la Biblia (con la historia de Babel) indica la gran importancia del lenguaje desde...
“We don't need no education / We don’t need no thought control / No dark sarcasm in the classroom / Hey, teachers! Leave them kids alone!” This is the chorus of the well-known song "The Wall" by Pink Floyd. Written in England at the end of the 1970s, it became a protest song against the abusive teaching methods that would be used in schools all ove...
El texto más conocido del filósofo y crítico alemán Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) es, sin duda, 'La obra de arte en la época de su reproducibilidad técnica', escrito en 1936. Esta obra, que trata sobre la destrucción del "aura" del objeto de arte en la época de la llamada "reproductibilidad técnica" es considerada uno de los ensayos sobre estética má...
El texto que me dispongo a comentar se incluye dentro de la obra filosófica 'Crítica del discernimiento, o de la facultad de juzgar', escrita en 1790 por el filósofo alemán Immanuel Kant. Kant es, junto con Hume y Burke, uno de los filósofos clave de la Estética Ilustrada del XVIII. Kant pertenece a la corriente filosófica del "Criticismo" o filoso...
Here I present my own ekphrastic poem/short text based on the painting ”The Old Guitarist” by Picasso.
'Quadrophenia' is a 1979 film loosely based on the eponymous album of the English rock band The Who. The film takes a deep look into one of the first pop subcultures ever, the “Mods”, a youth subculture born and raised in a particular time and space (1960s, South East England), and then developed in new or different ways in the subsequent decades....
Rock’n’roll unsettled a nation that had been living in an "age of anxiety" since 1945. For example, the emergence of rock’n’roll coincided with great ferment in the movement to grant civil rights to African Americans (racial politics). Furthermore, topics that had never been covered in music began to be introduced in rock’n’roll. Consequently, the...
'Thelma & Louise' is a 1991's American fim written by Callie Khourie and directed by Ridley Scott, starring Susan Sarandon as Louise and Geena Davis as Thelma. More than anything else, this is a film about what it would mean to be a woman in the United States, and particularly, a working class woman with few options in life. At the same time, it de...
Projects
Projects (5)
A selection of original articles, conference papers and presentations supporting critical interdisciplinary scholarship on films, media, visual arts, and comparative literature topics (including, for example, screen adaptations of both books and music albums).
The research provided engages with a wide range of issues in cultural and social analysis within different contexts – the historical, artistic, textual, and many others.
This is a collection of original articles and research on music-related subjects, exploring from musical genres and cultures, to individual songs, to artists from various social and cultural contexts.
The different works contained are informed by a variety of theoretical perspectives but ultimately devoted to a double shared goal: on the one hand, bringing to light the cultural and artistic qualities of music and songs which have at the same time inalienable social dimensions, and on the other, to generate a productive and creative dialogue between music and the other arts.
Ultimately, the research provided engages with a wide range of issues in cultural and social analysis within different contexts – the cultural, historical, textual, and many others.
This project collects the analyses of some of the most remarkable portrayals of fictional artists in literature, such as James Joyce's 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man', Willa Cather's 'The Song of The Lark', Cristina García's 'Dreaming in Cuban' and Sandra Cisneros' 'The House on Mango Street', for example, to examine the importance of creativity and art-making processes in the development of a positive self-identity, as it is the case with the respective protagonists.
Usually inspired by the authors' own journeys as novelists, the protagonists of these stories explore their relationship with family and society and ask fundamental questions, while weaving the arts into everything they do. Thus, these essays also interpret the implied dialogue of the authors with the artist depicted in each novel in order to discover their views on creativity in both its aesthetic and cultural dimensions.
When it comes to female artists in particular, it becomes clear that the authors discuss in their works the crisis between what is expected from women in light of factors such as gender and culture in opposition to how these artist-heroines choose to see themselves by putting forth a kind of identity that is characterized by independence, autonomy, rebellion and determination —positive terms that describe certain remarkable continuities in the ways in which women authors present the female characters they relate to.
